Most of the time when I vote something down, I would not try calling the person out if the same comment were made in an ordinary conversation. Explaining a downvote feels like calling someone out, and if I explained my downvotes a lot, I’d feel like I was being aggressive. Now, it’s possible that unexplained downvotes feel equally aggressive. But really, all a downvote should mean is that someone did the site a disservice equal in size to the positive contribution represented by a mere one upvote.
I mostly find unexplained downvotes aggressive because I find it frustrating in that I made some kind of mistake but no one wants to explain it to me so that I can do better next time.
It’s not that often that mistakes are unambiguous and uncontroversial once pointed out. A lot of the time, the question isn’t “do I want to point out his mistake so he can do better next time”, but “do I want to commit to having a probably fruitless debate about this”.
But really, all a downvote should mean is that someone did the site a disservice equal in size to the positive contribution represented by a mere one upvote.
I don’t understand this interpretation of down/upvotes. Is it normative? Intentionally objective rather than subjective? Is this advice to downvoters or the downvoted? Could you please clarify?
Explaining a downvote feels like calling someone out, and if I explained my downvotes a lot, I’d feel like I was being aggressive. Now, it’s possible that unexplained downvotes feel equally aggressive
To me they feel more aggressive, since they imply that the person doesn’t have enough status to deserve an explanation from the downvoter.
An equivalent behavior in real-life interaction would be saying something like “you fail”, followed by rudely ignoring the person when they attempted to follow up.
Not sure the status implication is accurate. When I vote down someone high-status, I don’t feel any particular compulsion to explain myself. If anything, it makes me anticipate that I’m unlikely to change anyone’s mind.
I think a much closer analogy than saying “you fail” is frowning.
Would you prefer that I posted a lot of comments starting with “I voted this down because”, or that I didn’t vote on comments I think detract from the site?
Most of the time when I vote something down, I would not try calling the person out if the same comment were made in an ordinary conversation. Explaining a downvote feels like calling someone out, and if I explained my downvotes a lot, I’d feel like I was being aggressive. Now, it’s possible that unexplained downvotes feel equally aggressive. But really, all a downvote should mean is that someone did the site a disservice equal in size to the positive contribution represented by a mere one upvote.
I mostly find unexplained downvotes aggressive because I find it frustrating in that I made some kind of mistake but no one wants to explain it to me so that I can do better next time.
It’s not that often that mistakes are unambiguous and uncontroversial once pointed out. A lot of the time, the question isn’t “do I want to point out his mistake so he can do better next time”, but “do I want to commit to having a probably fruitless debate about this”.
Do you think that every time a mistake would, in fact, be unambiguous and uncontroversial, it should be pointed out?
If so, do you think more downvotes should be explained?
From my experience it seems like the first quote implies the second.
I think this site is already extremely good at calling out unambiguous and uncontroversial mistakes.
I don’t understand this interpretation of down/upvotes. Is it normative? Intentionally objective rather than subjective? Is this advice to downvoters or the downvoted? Could you please clarify?
To me they feel more aggressive, since they imply that the person doesn’t have enough status to deserve an explanation from the downvoter.
An equivalent behavior in real-life interaction would be saying something like “you fail”, followed by rudely ignoring the person when they attempted to follow up.
Not sure the status implication is accurate. When I vote down someone high-status, I don’t feel any particular compulsion to explain myself. If anything, it makes me anticipate that I’m unlikely to change anyone’s mind.
I think a much closer analogy than saying “you fail” is frowning.
Would you prefer that I posted a lot of comments starting with “I voted this down because”, or that I didn’t vote on comments I think detract from the site?